The Terror

By the time actor Richard Bird got to make his directorial debut with this splendidly creaky thriller, Edgar Wallace's 1926 novel, The Black Abbot, had been reworked as a stage play and filmed in Hollywood by Roy Del Ruth as The Terror (1928). The scenario is satisfyingly convoluted, as jailbirds Henry Oscar and Alastair Sim fetch up at Monk's Hall Priory to find the criminal mastermind who had betrayed them a decade earlier following a security van heist. Led by Wilfrid Lawson and Bernard Lee, the ensemble cast couldn't be better, as eccentric characters jostle with red herrings and nocturnal organ recitals and cowled spectres spook the guests. Despite the action being restricted to an Elstree set that boasts some ruins and a secret passage, Bird directs with knowing wit and cinematic imagination, most notably using a superimposed montage to show how the world has changed while Oscar and Sim were doing their time. Undeniably hackneyed, but great fun nonetheless.